#Self-Taught Style and the General Benefit

Contents

zn11 · Selection rules (Variant). This document is valid only for tables that adopt it. On a numeric conflict, the canon co takes priority.

#Brief — What the Cultivated Self-Taught Style Is

The canon Self-Taught Style, like the two-sword style and the battlefield style of co-04-04, is finished from the start. Pay one school slot and, in that instant, you receive the Licensed menu and the secret art.

This volume's Self-Taught Style pays a slot of the same weight, but starts holding nothing.

	Canon Self-Taught Style (choose a finished product)	Cultivated Self-Taught Style (raise it from blank)
Acquisition cost	1 trait slot (irreversible)	The same — 1 trait slot (irreversible)
Licensed menu	Fixed the instant it is acquired	Begins empty
Secret art (Master-stage menu)	Fixed on reaching Master	Begins empty
General Benefit	impossible to read -2 (fixed)	impossible to read -2 ＋ the bud of your own individuality (below)
How it is filled	—	Observation (02) → Interlude design (03) → trial in real battle

Take the constraint of "self-taught, no fellow disciples" and make a work of it — not as a shortcoming, but as a story of growth worthy of the weight of the slot you paid. To set down, one stroke at a time, a single stroke that is no one else's kata: that is this volume's Self-Taught Style.

#Rule — Starting Setup

Key point. The cultivated Self-Taught Style is handled with the same accounting as a canon school — you pay 1 trait slot, and you reserve that skill's Licensed menu ＋ secret art (Master-stage menu) as "blanks you design yourself" (the same form as "a school replaces the Licensed menu ＋ secret art" in co-03-07 §6). No new slot type is created.

Acquisition timing. Character creation (Stage 1) or advancement (odd stages). Prerequisite ＝ Practiced (2 points) or higher in the target skill. Cost ＝ 1 trait slot (any 1 of class/general/background. Per co-04-03, irreversible).
Starting state. The school name is "the Nameless ○○" (○○ ＝ the target skill. e.g., the Nameless Blade, the Nameless Spear). The Licensed menu field and the secret-art field are blank. You gain the base General Benefit "impossible to read -2," and you further set 1 General Benefit as the bud of your individuality (below · GM agreement). While the target skill is below Licensed, only impossible to read -2 ＋ the General Benefit are active, and the Licensed-technique field stays empty — the slot was already spent at acquisition (the same accounting and opportunity cost as a general school).
How to fill the blanks (staged gate).

When the target skill reaches Licensed (3 points) — in place of the canon Licensed menu, design 1 Self-Taught Licensed technique and fill the field (Observation (02) ＋ Interlude (03)).
When the target skill reaches Master (4 points) — in place of the canon secret art, design 1 Self-Taught secret art and fill the field. Master is limited, per co-04-02, to Stage 2 or higher ＆ a class-designated skill among the 6.
A designed technique always takes one of the forms [Kata]/[stance]/[aptitude]/[upkeep], and does not occupy a weapon's Licensed-technique slot (the katana's "Flash," etc.) or the slot of another school. The cultivated Self-Taught Style is "a school of a skill," not a way of using a weapon.
Even when the target skill reaches Saint (5 points), the Self-Taught Style grants no additional menu (Saint ＝ automatic success only. Per co-04-03). Also, if the target skill is not one of the class's 6 Master-capable skills, the secret-art field cannot be designed, and you operate up to the Licensed technique (the secret-art field stays permanently empty).

School name. The instant a signature technique (03) is established, you may discard "the Nameless ○○" and name it (staging. e.g., "Han-gaeshi-ryu," "Sink Single-Stroke").

Relation to the slot cap. "Fitting Self-Taught techniques into the frames of Stage 1: 1 · Stage 2: 2 · Stage 4: 3 · Stage 6: 4 · Stage 8: 5 · Stage 10: 6" means raising that skill to Licensed/Master in the first place. This cap in co-04-02 is a cap on "the number of skills held at Licensed or above (Licensed · Master · Saint)," and the cultivated Self-Taught Style's Licensed/secret art, just like an ordinary Licensed skill, consumes 1 of this count (it is not counted twice). You may also hold a separate cultivated Self-Taught Style on each of several skills (per skill, 1 trait slot ＋ 1 held count are consumed separately. Per co-04-03).

#General Benefit

This table is the Step0 General Benefit — it is the Self-Taught Style's "individuality" that does not consume a trait/Licensed/secret-art slot, and is distinct from the Licensed/secret art built by the five methods. Set one, by GM agreement, a flavor-leaning "+1-class" minor effect that does not dominate combat, drawn by association from a technique/trait/weapon you hold, or from a general trait you can choose.

Origin	General Benefit (1, by GM agreement)
Weapon: tachi family (katana · kodachi)	[aptitude] Reading the Blade-Line — in a round facing an opponent of the same weapon family, +1 to your defense-technique roll against that first strike (1/combat). No firepower bonus.
Weapon: spear · polearm (incl. naginata)	[aptitude] Measuring the Reach — on the first 1 time within a round you use a polearm technique in the Front Zone, treated as having initiative on the range check (initiative bonus +1, 1/round, 1 time). Does not change Domination or Wounds.
Weapon: dagger · kunai family (incl. light tag)	[aptitude] Light Body, the Inside-Range Principle — +1 to hit on a short-weapon grapple/closing-in in the Core Zone (Core Zone only). When equipped with a light-tag weapon, movement Energy -1 (minimum 1, 1/round, 1 time). Firepower · Wounds · Pierce unchanged — it raises only the to-hit value, and even if a Critical Hit occurs, the light tag's no-benefit-on-Critical is unchanged (Wounds stay 1).
Weapon: matchlock · bow family	[aptitude] Reading the Wind — on the first 1 shot from the Rear Zone/high ground, you take no disadvantage even if the range band is 1 step too far (1/round, 1 time). Damage unchanged.
Skill: martial arts such as swordsmanship · spearmanship · unarmed combat, Practiced+	[aptitude] The Discerning Eye — at combat start, the GM reveals the type of 1 enemy's main weapon and whether it has a stance (information only, no numbers). Aids the triggering of an Observation Record.
Skill: ninjutsu (infiltration) · perception, Practiced+	[aptitude] Shadow-Eye · Omen — on the first breath of combat, the GM discloses in one word the main-ability leaning (offensive type/defensive type) of the nearest 1 enemy (or one targeting you). Does not change initiative · damage.
Skill: sorcery · ward · exorcism, Practiced+	[aptitude] Sensing the Presence — the GM hints, one breath in advance, at the triggering of a sorcery · shikigami · zone effect in an adjacent zone (tactical information, no numbers).
Skill: medicine, Practiced+	[upkeep] The First-Aid Hand — during a lull, recover 1 Wound on 1 unit (yourself) (1/lull, does not stack with existing healing).
Skill: negotiation · presence (entertainer family), Practiced+	[Kata] The Naming — Energy 1, 1/combat. Just before the round, you shout your school name. -1 to the next 1 roll of a first-time opponent.
Background: wandering · self-taught family, or holding 1 or more [stance] traits	[aptitude] Pride of My Own Style — (background) a state reached without a dojo or fellow disciples. +1 to negotiation in martial discourse with a Licensed holder of another school (0 combat effect). Or (a [stance] holder) when releasing a stance, re-declare a different stance within the same round for 1 Energy (1/combat).

Impossible to read and the General Benefit coexist. The base Self-Taught Style trait "against a first-time opponent, impossible to read -2 (the opponent's defense-technique choice -2, once only)" remains as is, and the General Benefit is the bud of individuality riding on top of it (since the source · duration · tags differ, it does not conflict with the stacking rule of co-03-07 §2.7).
However, "the Naming" counts as the same kind of "first-engagement interference" as impossible to read. When both take effect on the same opponent at once, apply only the stronger (impossible to read's -2) and do not accumulate to -3 (a design arrangement. GM adjudication).

#Commentary — Why Start From "Blank"

fc03's Sasaki Kojiro began from a masterless Self-Taught Style. The "Ganryu (巖流)" he established crystallized into a single signature technique — the reach of the nodachi (long sword · Monohoshizao) and the "Tsubamegaeshi (燕返し)," which binds the upstroke and downstroke into one beat. Kojiro lost the one duel of his life and died — yet even that single defeat left his school's name behind. Not a perfected great school, but a single stroke established by one life: that is why the name endures.

There lies the theme of the cultivated Self-Taught Style. The technique you watched is someone else's, the wound you took is someone else's too. But only the single stroke you raised up from your own flesh with those as seed is yours from first to last. To start from blank is to be able to declare that this single stroke was not "learned" but "established."

A note on terms. The "Ganryu (巖流)" referenced as material in this volume is Sasaki Kojiro's nodachi (long sword) school (fc03). On the other hand, Miyamoto Musashi's secret art of striking with both swords at once is written "Ganryu (巖流)" in the canon co-04-04 and "Dark Current (暗流)" in fc03, but either way it is a "technique name" distinct from Kojiro's school.

#Scent — A Single Line

"A learned kata is someone's completion. An established stroke begins from your own incompletion."